Legendary Notts County manager Jimmy Sirrel died on 25 September, 2008, aged 86.

He died in the early hours of this morning in the Queens Medical Centre after a long illness.

Sirrel was born on 2 February, 1922, in Glasgow, and played as a right winger with Celtic, Bradford Park Avenue and Brighton before moving on to Aldershot, where he began his coaching career. He first took charge of the Magpies on November 19, 1969.

He guided the club to the Division Four title in his first full season in charge in 1970/71 and then into Division Two in 1973.

He left Meadow Lane to take over at Sheffield United in 1975, but that was not the end of his love affair with Notts.

He returned to the club in October 1977 and famously led them into the top-flight of English Football in 1981, with a 2-0 against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge confirming the Magpies would be playing Division One football for the first time since 1926.

Sirrel then steered the club to successive 15th-place finishes in the 1981/82 and 1982/83 campaigns; he was general manager to Howard Wilkinson in the club's second season in the top-flight.

In doing so, the Magpies thoroughly upset universal-expectation that condemned them to a swift fall back down the Football League ladder.

Sirrel continued as general manager of the club in the 1983/84 season, but Notts were relegated from Division One under coach Larry Lloyd.

Lloyd was sacked the following season, with the Magpies staring a second successive relegation in the face.

And Sirrel was back in his track-suit in an unsuccessful attempt to save the club from a dispiriting drop into Division Three.

After a swift free-fall, he managed to instigate a period of stability at Meadow Lane, before announcing his retirement at the end of the 1986/87 campaign.

In 1993, the newly-redeveloped County Road Stand was renamed the Jimmy Sirrel Stand in his honour.

He was still a regular visitor to Meadow Lane until the end of the 2007/08 season, when ill health forced him to stay away.

Notts chairman John Armstrong-Holmes said: "The news has stunned everyone and although it's 20 years since Jimmy left the club, he was still affectionately remembered by everyone.

"It was indicative last year of how Notts County fans regarded him that the Trust commissioned a portrait painting of the great man. It now hangs prominently in the entrance to Meadow Lane and will be a permanent reminder of all that he did for our club."